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WHFB had a makeover with GW introducing Age of Sigmar.


If you were working for GW and were tasked to do the same thing for WH40k, what changes would you introduce to the lore/fluff?


Personally, I would focus on the xenos interactions that have largely been ignored. Tau & Eldar, Chaos & Dark Eldar etc.

The three big things I see coming to a AoS-style situation to W40K (in no particular order) are the following:

(i) The resolution of the 13th Black Crusade, likely ending in a Chaos victory and the full scale invasion of the material universe by the Ruinous Powers.

(ii) The awakening of a major portion of the remaining un-awakened Tomb Worlds under the unification efforts of the Silent King.

(iii) The bulk of the Tyranid Hive Fleets (or at least the major three - Behemoth, Kraken, and Leviathan) arriving in the Milky Way Galaxy.


There was a couple more things I was tempted to add to the above list, but I didn't. Here's what they are and why I'm not sure about them:

The Emperor has essentially been decaying in the Golden Throne since the Horus Heresy. He is also a perpetual - i.e. he is nigh impossible to kill. That being said, he was stabbed with a perpetual-killing weapon by Horus who, at the time, was imbued by power from all four of the major Chaos Gods. So there's a whole bunch of things they can do as to whether or not the Emperor will actually die, whether or not he will regenerate, the consequences of his death and/or regeneration on the Imperium, etc etc.

The Return of the Primarchs: This is a big one as well as a huge wild card because of two things. The first is that there are a number of Loyalist Primarchs who are still alive (missing or by technicality). The second is the two Lost Primarchs and their Legions. Are the Primarchs alive? Will they ever come back? What about their Legions? It's a complicated issue overall that could be explored in great detail (and IMO, with the reintroduction of the missing Loyalist Primarchs and the Two Missing ones, there could be as much story telling on this subject alone as there is/will be on the Horus Heresy).


What would I change?

I'm not sure what I'd change, to be perfectly honest. The only thing I'd be 100% keen on changing is the lore surrounding the Tyranids in what I think is a two-fold problem: The Tyranids not only seem to be over-powered (fluff-wise) but also ultimately unstoppable. So what I think GW needs to do is retcon the fluff to make them less over-powered and also give the Imperium and/or other major Xenos races the ability to halt and/or push back the Tyranid invasion.

I also agree with you on the whole inter-Xenos interaction, but that's pretty hard to do. The main reason for this is the same reason that there aren't more novels written from the perspective of Xenos races. Because we're human trying to imagine what it's like in a fictional dystopia set 28,000 - 38,000 years from now, writing about the perspective of a member of the Imperium or human-related race is hard enough. Trying to write from the perspective of a Xenos would be like trying to write about some of the atrocities in current day third world countries from the perspective of a dog - it can be done, but it's likely not to be very good. Nevertheless, more inter-Xenos interactions from a purely Xenos perspective would be awesome if done right.


Other than the Tyranid thing and the addition of more inter-Xenos interactions, there's very little I'd actually change. For me, it's more about the progression of more galactic-ally significant events.

I'd be very VERY leery of changing the lore, because more people right now, like the 40k setting then like the game. now with that in mind, moving the events forward could, if done right, make GW a fair bit of money. people would like buy the novels even if they didn't play 40k, assuming they did it right. it's worth noting that the Horus Heresy novels initally brought in a LOT of readers.

It really seems like GW is setting it up for the 13th Black Crusade to spark a whole chain of events. My prediction is it will result in a return of Epic style minis, in particular the return of the Primarchs and Daemon Primarchs (Sorry BA and IH players). The only ones I cant see benefiting from this are the Tau, as I dont know enough of their fluff to know what they have which can be giant. Maybe an anime style giant mech?

Well first of all, not pull an AoS and just say LOL whole universe is destroyed, and then the emperor just recreates it LAWL LAWL LAWL.

I think a really awesome story would be something along the following lines, mind you, these are just major events, not in any particular order

The plug gets pulled on the Big E

Chaos dominate the majority of the Gothic sector, as abadon rolls out and shows no mercy.

major losses for the IoM.

Major losses for Eldar and Tau.

Massive amount of fighting activates large number of tomb worlds. which ends up slowing down the Advancing chaos fleet.

Salamanders find missing artifacts, Vulkan comes back.

Cypher is caught, dark angles secret is reviled, before they are executed Lion el Johson comes back turns out he was cypher the whole time in disguise and redeems them(Personal fan/head canon)

IoM Realize they are pretty much boned, agree to ally with the Eldar as allies of convenience.

Abadon sends a massive attack force to wipe out Ultramar as it acts as one of the final defenses for Terra.

Just as things are about to turn south for the IoM, and consequently the elder, Big E comes roaring back in from the warp, in the flesh, with Lemmen russ in tow. The whole time Russ was waiting for the last bit of the emperors soul to be released so he could basically catch it with a super spoopy warp butterfly net thingy and bring him back.

So ends the dark age of technology, but due to the massive losses from Chaos, things are not going hot.

The whole time orks are doing you know, ork things, and looting and stuff, Necrons are killing, Nids are eating, eldar are pooing their collective frilly panties, and Guards men are just fed up.

BONUS FLUFF! Watchers in the dark turn out to be squats because why the hell not.

Its, at least to me, very obvious what they would do - the same as they did with WHFB.

Show a Chaos victory, (or necron or tyranid or whatever) with the Emperor (sigmar) recovering at the last minute to launch a new crusade to retake the galaxy (mortal realms).

The whole premise of the AOS vs that of WHFB was it now has a positive spin. We are not looking at the slow decline into a chaos victory but a period or resurgent Order.

The same scenario would be true for 40k.

Personally I think its a terrible idea

TheWanderer wrote:
Its, at least to me, very obvious what they would do - the same as they did with WHFB.

Show a Chaos victory, (or necron or tyranid or whatever) with the Emperor (sigmar) recovering at the last minute to launch a new crusade to retake the galaxy (mortal realms).

The whole premise of the AOS vs that of WHFB was it now has a positive spin. We are not looking at the slow decline into a chaos victory but a period or resurgent Order.

The same scenario would be true for 40k.

Personally I think its a terrible idea

This, IMO AoS was a cop out to get out of bad writing, instead of locking them selves in a room with a case of whiskey and try to hash out a good story to move things along, they just said Gak it, and hit the reset button.

I would be ok with impieral losses so long as it ends with a IoM survives the last stand and the Big E comes back with his sons to wreck some shop, but its going to be an uphill battle

that said, many, many MANY! moons ago, the story would actually progress based on battle reports from GW stores. But i think that has gone the way of the GK, which is either a good or bad thing, remains to be seen. But seeing as how GW cant write rules, probably a good thing.

Big E gets unplugged or the chair fails and he becomes reborn.
Abbadon succeeds at bringing out the ruinous powers.
Ghazzy succeeds at building enough Waaaagh energy for Gork and Mork to come out of warp too.
Bulk of tyranids reach the galaxy just in time to meet the United orks.
Ctan break free and enslave the necrons but also unites them.
With Slaanesh no longer in the warp Eldar celebrate with a racial wide hedonistic orgy.
Commorough Eldar approve and welcomes them as brothers both Eldar variants wait out the storm in their hidden city replenishing their numbers through ritualistic orgies with religious zeal.
The Cau Empire becomes an Imperial farm producing the highest quality bovine products in the galaxy.
Squats reveal themselves from hiding because reasons...

An advancement in the story line probably wont happen soon. and we wont seen an AOS happening at all. AOS was an answer not to a problem with the game but a problem with GW's profit margin. 40k is selling fine. we know this because the product line is being expanded and many, many resources are being funneled into it. If it wasn't then we woudlnt see all the new stuff for 40k. Case in point look at how GW treated LOTR and WFB before AOS, they withheld more support than they gave. over the last few years the power creep in the game has not been designed to make the games bigger and more epic, because rule of cool, although coincidentally it does fall into that. It has been happening because it forces competitive players to buy more models.

Examples:

1. Lords of war- Knights, storm surge, wraith knights, little titans, super heavy tanks, stompahs and gargants. Gigantic creatures. Because they have become standard in many lists, to be competitive (the part of the hobby that sells the most models, which is what GW cares about) you pretty much have to take one now, which means a mandatory 150-300 dollar purchase. there is a reason why each codex only has 1 figurine sized LOW and a bunch of superheavy vehicle options.

2. Formations- formations add powerful rules but to get hem you have to take specific units, and thus you must buy a bunch of those specific units, even if you wold not normally field them. Also the rules themselves encourage you to bring more models to the table, which in turn makes you buy more models (free rhinos, razorback and pods in the SM formation is great, but that's still 7-9 transports at ~40 bucks each) unit paring in many of the formations makes tactical of fluff sense, but very few of the formations are truly optimized and efficient, and many include less popular units so you will actually buy them.

Grey Knighting- This is when a codex is released as an update but doesn't have new models or kits. The new codex released changes the way the army plays in subtle ways and shift the armies strategical focus towards different units as to encourage players to buy more of a specific type of model.

Expansion of the allies matrix- this allowed for people playing a wider variety of factions to buy units, usually expensive ones, like centurions, and add them even if their chosen army couldn't normally run them. This doesn't really affect non imperium players that much, but it does mean that every human faction update is an opportunity for all players of the IOM to spend more money, and as the largest chunk of players, this is good for the gw accounting department.

GW has deliberately been slowly turning the game into one in which you win by out spending your opponent. this is great for the company producing the game. unless the fanbase starts abandoning the game like they did in WFB there wont be a need to change what they have been doing for 10+ years

Emperor dies. Possibly by the Throne failing but I'd prefer it to be Cyphers work.

Terra gets engulfed in a second eye of terror as the Emperor is reborn as a new Chaos God, his soul finally unshackled from his body. And I do mean Chaos God, the Emperor would not be a good god. The Emperor has been fed by the faith of a corrupt and rotting Imperium for too long for him to be good. He would become the God of Order, obedience, unquestioning loyalty. A Blank faced God of Gold whose Daemon Worlds would be tarnished surfaces of gold and his cultists would walk around until they die just because the Emperor told them to.

The Imperium would fracture without the Astrominician, thousands of petty warlords and Governers declaring there vassal realms as the ''New Imperium'' in the wake of the Emperors death. War would spring up as ambitious warlords try seize control of all Agri-worlds and Forge worlds within a short warp jump away (long distance warp travel would be near impossible). Inquisitors, Chapter Masters and Guard Commanders would use there forces to set themselves in small kingdoms to wait out the storm.

Space Marines would be largely uneffected, they would continue to do the only thing they know how to do, make war. Most Space Marines were distant from the Imperium and with their duty gone they would become Mercenary Kings, pillaging and raiding for supplies and becoming warriors for hire. Ultra Marines would create the Ultramar Empire, with all possible successor chapters flocking to Maccrage in the wake of the Emperors death.

The Eldar, hoping to summon Ynnead once and for all would commit ritual suicide. Pumping nerve gas into the craftworlds air supplies they would kill off the entire Craftworld Eldar. All except Biel-Tan, which would grow hundreds of times its size as all the surviving Craftworlders and Corsairs flock to it's Wraithbone gates. It would refuse to die and continue on as it did before, swept up in there dreams of reclimation. Ynnead, unfulfilled, would wriggle within the pure calm warp of the infinity circuits but would be unable to break free until Biel-Tan falls.

Commarragh would thrive. The Entire Imperium at their pickings, they would raid and pillage and plunder. Unknown prosperity floods into The Dark City, which Vect uses to sure up the defences around Khaines Gate. Most Archons are too busy plundering to vye for Vects crown. So far. And worse still, Lady Malys, host of the crystal heart of Cegorarch works secretly alongside her Mandrake allies (Mandrakes being the bastard children of Qah, the Hrud God of Shadows) aiming to bring the equilibrium of Commarragh shattering down.

Tau would expand massively, no longer held in check by the threat of a combined Imperium and providing a quality of life and greater purpose the now God-less Imperial citizens craved, surrounding sectors fall to Tau without resistence. However, seeing the destruction caused by the Warring petty Imperiums and fraught with the up till now unknown dangers of a large empire (communication is hard, central government alienates people, civil insurrection, border wars) the Tau lose their optimism. They see only under Tau rule the Universe safe from itself. They start looking into artificial intelligence, like the Imperium of Old. Fear the soul in the machine.

Void Dragon awakes on Mars, the final full C'tan, and he is angry. Fighting his way free of the newly formed Terran Hells he begins a campaign to wipe out the Dynastic Necrons. Using his colossal will he wipes entire tomb worlds of sentience, creating Necronomitons like we used to know, emotionless and cold only wanting to end all life. Dragon Tides (systamtic purges of all life in a sector) begin as the Dragon begins his assault, only held in check by the masses of Warp Storms flooding Matierium. He begins moving in the only stable sector, towards the quickly expanding Tau Meta Empire.

The Laughing God sets in motion the final act, pulling every string he has set in motion since he was shattered. Because the Laughing God is now what he seems, he was in fact once a Shard of the shattered C'tan the Deciever who played both sides of the War in the Heavens and managed to secure a place in the Eldar pantheon. He pulls the strings of the Tau meta empire, the Tau always have been a cog in his plan, directing them towards the newly risen Void Dragon to buy himself and his Old one ally, Qah, He who Lingers, God of the Hrud, time to complete their final plans. Harlequin activity sky rockets, inciting wars and making peace, defending the now empty Ghost Craftworlds from interlopers, following their own script to the letter. They begin to deactivate webway junctions leading to and from Commaragh.

The Orks and Tyranids fight, and fight, and fight. Octavius is a maelstrom of war, billions upon billions of each race pouring into the anvil from across the galaxy. Both races thrive off of war, Gargents vs Biotitians and Ork fungal spores vs Tyranid parasite spores. But atop that anvil of war something...different arose. Ork Fungal spores where infected by Tyranid spores, hatching a horrid abomination. Ork ingenuity along side the mindless hunger of the Tyranids. This 'New devourer' breaks the deadlock in a colossal faction, subverting the basic biology of both factions in a way neither could fight. The Tyranids recoil from the galaxy like a hand that brushed against something incredibly hot, the mesmerising astrominician now gone nothing drew them to the galaxy anymore. They flee the great devourer to find easier prey in another galaxy.

The Orks, never one to turn down a fight, fight to the last. A mass exodus of every Ork in the galaxy as they converge upon Octavius, the biggest WAAAAGHH! ever assembled. They fall upon the new devourer and are ripped apart. Devourer spores subverting fungal spores, Ork psychology of throwing themselves into a fight is their down fall and they can't adapt quick enough to face off the threat. Ghazskull and his WAAAAGHH! are the only Orks save for primitive feral Orks that survive the encounter, as they where lead deep into the Webway by dancing ghosts. Deep in the webway the Orks were remade, their genetic potential finally unlocked into the War race the Old Ones developed them to be. They emerged from the webway as the Krork, every one of them Nob sized power armour clad monsters wielding phase plasma technology. Cegorarch puts them to work against the Void Dragon's Dragon Tide, they being the only force in actuality that can fight him and win. But being the War loving race they are, they expand across the Stars.

Chaos wins, and is in disarray. The Star Father. Chaos God of Order has sent the war into turmoil. He warred with the Chaos Gods for an enternity and in a nano second, so the warp goes, but in the end none of the Chaos Gods have the power to defeat him and they won't work together long enough without back stabbing each other. The Star Father falls into place as the fith chaos god, a member of the great game like any other.

I want 40K to get more grim dark, not more hopeful. And everything points to the Imperium toppling in a dramatic manner. I want to see this happen!

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Emperor dies. Possibly by the Throne failing but I'd prefer it to be Cyphers work.

I want this one so bad, i love Cyphers so much, he seems like such a cool character.

My fan/head canon is that he is actually lion el johnson, and he is disguised, trying to free the emperor.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Emperor dies. Possibly by the Throne failing but I'd prefer it to be Cyphers work.

Terra gets engulfed in a second eye of terror as the Emperor is reborn as a new Chaos God, his soul finally unshackled from his body. And I do mean Chaos God, the Emperor would not be a good god. The Emperor has been fed by the faith of a corrupt and rotting Imperium for too long for him to be good. He would become the God of Order, obedience, unquestioning loyalty. A Blank faced God of Gold whose Daemon Worlds would be tarnished surfaces of gold and his cultists would walk around until they die just because the Emperor told them to.

The Imperium would fracture without the Astrominician, thousands of petty warlords and Governers declaring there vassal realms as the ''New Imperium'' in the wake of the Emperors death. War would spring up as ambitious warlords try seize control of all Agri-worlds and Forge worlds within a short warp jump away (long distance warp travel would be near impossible). Inquisitors, Chapter Masters and Guard Commanders would use there forces to set themselves in small kingdoms to wait out the storm.

Space Marines would be largely uneffected, they would continue to do the only thing they know how to do, make war. Most Space Marines were distant from the Imperium and with their duty gone they would become Mercenary Kings, pillaging and raiding for supplies and becoming warriors for hire. Ultra Marines would create the Ultramar Empire, with all possible successor chapters flocking to Maccrage in the wake of the Emperors death.

The Eldar, hoping to summon Ynnead once and for all would commit ritual suicide. Pumping nerve gas into the craftworlds air supplies they would kill off the entire Craftworld Eldar. All except Biel-Tan, which would grow hundreds of times its size as all the surviving Craftworlders and Corsairs flock to it's Wraithbone gates. It would refuse to die and continue on as it did before, swept up in there dreams of reclimation. Ynnead, unfulfilled, would wriggle within the pure calm warp of the infinity circuits but would be unable to break free until Biel-Tan falls.

Commarragh would thrive. The Entire Imperium at their pickings, they would raid and pillage and plunder. Unknown prosperity floods into The Dark City, which Vect uses to sure up the defences around Khaines Gate. Most Archons are too busy plundering to vye for Vects crown. So far. And worse still, Lady Malys, host of the crystal heart of Cegorarch works secretly alongside her Mandrake allies (Mandrakes being the bastard children of Qah, the Hrud God of Shadows) aiming to bring the equilibrium of Commarragh shattering down.

Tau would expand massively, no longer held in check by the threat of a combined Imperium and providing a quality of life and greater purpose the now God-less Imperial citizens craved, surrounding sectors fall to Tau without resistence. However, seeing the destruction caused by the Warring petty Imperiums and fraught with the up till now unknown dangers of a large empire (communication is hard, central government alienates people, civil insurrection, border wars) the Tau lose their optimism. They see only under Tau rule the Universe safe from itself. They start looking into artificial intelligence, like the Imperium of Old. Fear the soul in the machine.

Void Dragon awakes on Mars, the final full C'tan, and he is angry. Fighting his way free of the newly formed Terran Hells he begins a campaign to wipe out the Dynastic Necrons. Using his colossal will he wipes entire tomb worlds of sentience, creating Necronomitons like we used to know, emotionless and cold only wanting to end all life. Dragon Tides (systamtic purges of all life in a sector) begin as the Dragon begins his assault, only held in check by the masses of Warp Storms flooding Matierium. He begins moving in the only stable sector, towards the quickly expanding Tau Meta Empire.

The Laughing God sets in motion the final act, pulling every string he has set in motion since he was shattered. Because the Laughing God is now what he seems, he was in fact once a Shard of the shattered C'tan the Deciever who played both sides of the War in the Heavens and managed to secure a place in the Eldar pantheon. He pulls the strings of the Tau meta empire, the Tau always have been a cog in his plan, directing them towards the newly risen Void Dragon to buy himself and his Old one ally, Qah, He who Lingers, God of the Hrud, time to complete their final plans. Harlequin activity sky rockets, inciting wars and making peace, defending the now empty Ghost Craftworlds from interlopers, following their own script to the letter. They begin to deactivate webway junctions leading to and from Commaragh.

The Orks and Tyranids fight, and fight, and fight. Octavius is a maelstrom of war, billions upon billions of each race pouring into the anvil from across the galaxy. Both races thrive off of war, Gargents vs Biotitians and Ork fungal spores vs Tyranid parasite spores. But atop that anvil of war something...different arose. Ork Fungal spores where infected by Tyranid spores, hatching a horrid abomination. Ork ingenuity along side the mindless hunger of the Tyranids. This 'New devourer' breaks the deadlock in a colossal faction, subverting the basic biology of both factions in a way neither could fight. The Tyranids recoil from the galaxy like a hand that brushed against something incredibly hot, the mesmerising astrominician now gone nothing drew them to the galaxy anymore. They flee the great devourer to find easier prey in another galaxy.

The Orks, never one to turn down a fight, fight to the last. A mass exodus of every Ork in the galaxy as they converge upon Octavius, the biggest WAAAAGHH! ever assembled. They fall upon the new devourer and are ripped apart. Devourer spores subverting fungal spores, Ork psychology of throwing themselves into a fight is their down fall and they can't adapt quick enough to face off the threat. Ghazskull and his WAAAAGHH! are the only Orks save for primitive feral Orks that survive the encounter, as they where lead deep into the Webway by dancing ghosts. Deep in the webway the Orks were remade, their genetic potential finally unlocked into the War race the Old Ones developed them to be. They emerged from the webway as the Krork, every one of them Nob sized power armour clad monsters wielding phase plasma technology. Cegorarch puts them to work against the Void Dragon's Dragon Tide, they being the only force in actuality that can fight him and win. But being the War loving race they are, they expand across the Stars.

Chaos wins, and is in disarray. The Star Father. Chaos God of Order has sent the war into turmoil. He warred with the Chaos Gods for an enternity and in a nano second, so the warp goes, but in the end none of the Chaos Gods have the power to defeat him and they won't work together long enough without back stabbing each other. The Star Father falls into place as the fith chaos god, a member of the great game like any other.

I want 40K to get more grim dark, not more hopeful. And everything points to the Imperium toppling in a dramatic manner. I want to see this happen!

Then why not just re-read LordLucan's work again?

 Backspacehacker wrote:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Emperor dies. Possibly by the Throne failing but I'd prefer it to be Cyphers work.

I want this one so bad, i love Cyphers so much, he seems like such a cool character.

My fan/head canon is that he is actually lion el johnson, and he is disguised, trying to free the emperor.

I have always thought that Cypher is in fact traveling through the galaxy on a different timeline than everyone else. His events happen in a different order than everyone else's and if someone could put the events in the correct sequence you could see the pattern, but no one has. I also think his actions are ultimately supposed to be what he believes is best for mankind and he isnt actually a dedicated agent of chaos.

Suggestion? Don't do it!

@ALEXisAWESOME, just FYI, the Void Dragon isn't the last full C'tan any more - it was mentioned in the 7th edition Necron codex that a shard of the Void Dragon escaped at one point and destroyed nearly a dozen worlds before Crypteks could tame it again. Still, if one shard did that then your point definitely still stands, if there was a Transcendent Void Dragon Shard on Mars then may the God-Emperor help humanity

Looks like some of these predictions are coming true.

It'd be interesting to see the Imperium fall, it's territories fracturing into a bunch of remnants/separate empires, kind of like a new age of strife.

 Imperial_grunt wrote:
It'd be interesting to see the Imperium fall, it's territories fracturing into a bunch of remnants/separate empires, kind of like a new age of strife.

some Chaos puppet rulers would be nice too.